that time of the year again, mothers day.

so it's the month of May. In Canada that means the days are getting nicer and longer, the flowers are out and you can't get enough of the rays. It is also fastly approching mothers day.

This Sunday will be the 6th mother's day since my mum pased away, the end of the month marks 7 years since she passed. some times it's a good thing to remember and reflext. some times not.

I don't have any memeories of that last mothers day i spent with my mum. i couldn't even tell you if she was in hospital or not.... i know that my school formal was at the end of April and she went straight from dropping me off to hosipital, so changes are she was.

They say you don't forget people you love but you do. my memories these days are fewer and with have more gaps in them. there are many things i'd like to ask my mum or talk to her about but i never got around to it while she was alive. part of that was because i was sixteen when she passed. I never got to that real adult relationship that you can have with parents, you know when you can be more interested in them then yourself.

I'm greatful that i spent my teenage years getting along with my mother. so many of my friends in high school were constanly at war with theres. time i (more like she) didn't have.

For so long i was angrey about some of the memories i have carred about my mother. but i'm starting to see them as a blessing. i was the last person to see her alive, i pretty much saw her stuggle to take her last breath. i was the last one to talk to her. i was there when she let up her spirit and became noting more then a shell, her body released all its gasses. though at the time i didn't see it that way, but these were all privilages. some people get to be present when you enter the world, but how often do you get to be their when someone you truely love leaves the world. this to is a sacred occation. at the time i didn't think this, i was an angrey teenager that just wanted their mum around, and was desprately trying to hold on to anything of her.

i don't think i really have a point for my rampling... but enjoy the people who are in your life while they are their. Treasure the time you spend with them. Even the not so happy times. I was a complex birth as i know others were, yet i know my parents didn't begrude having a sickly baby in hospital for 6 weeks, and the emotional stress it would of caused, as they focused on the joy of the situation. now if only we can think the same about grife and loss. i now don't begradue the lose or the drama of my mums death, compared to knowing her and having a relatinship with her. someone there telling you you're not stupid or retared when that's all you feel. someone who made you feel safe and loveable. someone fitting on your behalf when you don't really know theirs a battle going on. after almost 7 years i'm learning to trust again and open myself up to the beuty of relionships, even when they hurt and the benefits fare out way the pain.

the facts

800,000 women and children are kidnapped, trafficked, and raped each year.

That’s 2200 people each and every day…

one every 39 seconds.

In a case study of rescued Nepalese trafficking victims, 38% had HIV/AIDS.

In 2005, only 58 trafficking convictions were laid on the entire continent of Africa.

An estimated 14,000 people are trafficked into the United States each year.

Only 59 traffickers were convicted in the entire Western Hemisphere in 2005.

Traffickers who are arrested may receive as little as 1-4 years in prison..

find out more:
http://www.iamcoming.org/about/
http://stopthetraffic.org/
http://salvationarmy.ca/trafficing
http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/trafficking
http://iast.net/
http://salvationist.ca/trafficking

just to list a few sites for today. Prepare to have your heart broken and heart stired.

i could go on and on, and have a big rant here

but i'm going out it 2 mins but thougth i'd quickly update.

found this on my travels on the net today.

human trafficing suxs! check out sites like
www.IAMCOMING.org, stop the traffic.org.

don't participate with things that encourge the abuse of women, like strip clubs, porn, prostusion ect.

Also while your at it, think about only eating fair trade or traffic free choclate. kids are sold into salvary for a couple of buks to work the coaca fileds that surply most of the worlds chocholate. And think about sponsoring a child, or joining with others and sponcoring a child. My teen cell and i sponcor a buitful girl named monicia. she's an orphen, and she is from uganada... i'm thinking about the fesabiliity of sponsoring my own child, but thinking i should waite for my visa stuff comes back saying its a ok to stay in candad.

immigration

for thouse who don't know i'm looking into becoming a permant resident in Canada. Why? I feel the Lord promting me. I've always known that i'd be invovled in ministry and comunity stuff hear for a few years when i came back to canada... now it seems it may be more... somedays its exciting, somedays i wonder if i've having faith is the right thing.

For thouse who ask, 'isn't there ministry stuff in Oz? that's simila" the answer is yes. I've even contemplated becoming involved. But ministry isn't just about what you do, it's all about your relaionship with God. We have a very personal God, with callings and plains for peoples lives, and He has called me to Canada. It may not make sence to some of you, but the Bible is full of accounts of God doing unusal things in our understaning. So for all you foke in Oz, particulary family, I love you and care for you and i miss being able to get and catch up, particulary over food. But feel free to fill me in on your lives, i'm interested though not the most avoid person at replying.

Bad Habits die hard...

i 1st started this blog to easliy let people who are imporatnt to my life (who may happen to be on the other side of the world) know what's going on in my life. Unfortantely i've never been that concent. Or i've often got frustrated at the whole writting thing as an ineffectent way of comunicating. My applogies... i've yet to master a comunication style that i find easy and effortless apart for in person contact, so bare with me and feel free to incourge me.please continue to read, and if your in Oz and a family member, could you posible print a copy and send it to the gradparents.

BTW on a side note, having mono really made english much harder. it was like i regrased to my primary school days (when i just used to pretned that i could read and write,) for a large portion of the day it even effected my speech on occation, Ange to you remember when i couldn't say the word ladder and would call it a letter? i felt very esl at times

my heart hurts

Have you ever got to know someone, really know someone. Someone who's been really hurt in their life, abused, taken advantage of...
People tend to trust me. I don't know if you'd call it a skill or not, but I've meet thouse who have closed off from the world begin to share some major deep things with me... stuff they'd never tell stranger or even thier councelers. it's not always fun, sitting in the pain and hurt with people, ANd it hurts when people you know real well get overwelmed by the pain and hurt and run back to abusive relionships, drugs, achole ect. But when they stop running and face the pain and hand it over to Christ it's beautiful to see life's change.... still doens't make those moments easy or fun.

started making a list of things i hate
#1Sexual abuse
#Chiled abuse
# taking adavange of people
# pipping children
# thouse who sexuly exploit children

are just some.

I see so strongly now the need to protect and work with kids, to provide good stable homes and faimily lives... who knows maybe one day i'll foster stacks of children or run a children's home ore something... still trying to dail down which passion to follow in life.

sitting in the hurt with people has egnited some passion within me. Particulary on

The Wedding is off!!

A dear freind of mine who wonts me to be a permiant resident in Canada insistecd on marring me if it came to that to keep my in the country leagaly. Slight catch is, it's a girl.
I kind of laughed off the propusal a number of times, but my friend was serious, and even investigated that matter.
Turns out that though Canada reconize same sex marrige, it's not reconized in the same way as hetrosexual marrige. Meaning if your mared to someone of the same sex they don't qulify to sponsor you into the country on grounds of marrige.

So i'm a working girl again

I'm back in the main stream workplace and it's a bit odd. Gone are the days of shelter work, drunk and high people, mental illness ect.
I'm loving the routine, get up go to work. not so much the leave working and crashing for the rest of the day. Partiuculy when it's only been a 2 hour work day. Virus suck. Been wining a bit this week about wanting to be well again...
My current job so far merges 3 of my priouvous jobs all into one. Retail, accounts, office work and productions. Desiring some more training so i'm more competant, but also desire better energy leavels and brain funtion so i'm more competant. But all in all, once my body is healthy again this seems like a promising job for bi vocational ministry.

today's readings on Human trafficing..

Some things in the world make me angry. Somethings just aren't right. Prostution and Human trafficing are one of them...i've changed a bit from my school girl days of ingroning the things that set me on fire. now i activily seek to be informed so things can change.

I've been fortunte in my life to been able to get to know people in a real meaningful way who have have been effectived by prostution and/ or human trafficing. I have names and faces and stories to but to the satictics.

i was doing my weekly reading on the subject and there seems to be a concensus over the world about dealing with human trafficing.

"We need to address the root causes [of trafficking] in countries of origin - poverty, violence and demand," she said.

"We need to cut the demand in the host countries and cut corruption, increase life chances and boost the economy in the countries of origin, she said.

So i have a question what are you doing to stop human trafficing? Now we can't all be working with victims but we all can and should do something.
do you sponsor a child? are you activily involved in meeting needs of eztream povity?
How about your attudie to women? to you promote equlity? stand up againts voilance and abuse? Do you view sex as a comoduity.. you may not partake in prostution but do you ever veiw someone as a sex object, watch porn ect.. as all those things play a part in adding to the demand.

if you want to know more about human trafficing i really recomend
http://www.stophumantraffic.com/pdf/Prostitution&Trafficking.pdf

Understanding grace.

how many time have you heard the song amazing grace? how many times have you song it? have you ever stoped to think what it means. I often stop to ponder words in hyms, as i often get confused by the english langue. but grace is something that often confuess me.

what brought about this pondering was thatI was at church last night, which is out of character for me. It was amazing grace Sunday. 200 years since Europe got rid of slavery. And as the writer of Amazing Grace was a slave trader before his conversation it was the theme. That and there is a movie coming out by that title coming out. So as we were talking about slavery today, human trafficking and how we are all caught in slavery to sin till Christ bought us back via His grace that it really hit me that I really had no idea what the word grace meant.

I’ve known simple definitions such as,
God’s riches at Christ’s expense. Or unmerited favor/ gift.

But again these are just words to me, nothing really clicked for meaning.

I get stories more, so stories of acceptance, forgiveness, love, to the person who had done totally wrong to you have helped me understand grace a bit more. But that’s just part of the picture.

As you read through how it’s used in the bible, you’d get that’s just part of the picture. Why else would the apostles keep encourage the early church to grow in grace.

Grace is so much more. I’m starting to have a revelation of that. hear are some things I read about grace today.

Grace indicates the visible expression of God's power in action.

Grace is a transforming reality

Grace is used to express the vital difference between human attempts to win God's favor and the way in which personal relationship with God is actually established and developed.

Grace declares that God is merciful and loving and that he is able to act to meet our deepest need. Grace teaches that God has acted in Jesus to bring us forgiveness and new life through his atoning sacrifice on Calvary.

Grace affects our experience as well.

Grace expresses a radical view of life and of relationship with God.

Grace is a way of life. Relying totally on Jesus to work within us, we experience God's own unlimited power, vitalizing us and enabling us to live truly good lives.

Grace's
View of mankind: Basically sinful, unable to please God
Associated concepts: Promise, gift, faith
Focus: Jesus
Results: Forgiveness, life, righteousness
Definition: God’s free action based on Jesus’ death and motivated by love- to redeem all who believe and to make them righteous.

Religion
View of mankind: Basically good, able to please God
Associated concepts: Law, works, obligation
Focus: Self
Results: Condemnation, death, sin
Definition: Man’s effort to do good and by his own work to merit salvation as a deserved reward for his behavior.

Grace truly is a revelotionry thing. I pray that the world would have a greater reveletion of Grace and that Christian's every were would grown in grace and truly know that God's Grace is surficent.

this isn't just something of the past, or something that happens in other places

What is Trafficking?
Trafficking is the recruitment and transportation of persons within or across boundaries by force, fraud, or deception for the purpose of exploiting them economically. Trafficked people most commonly work in sweatshops, restaurants, on farms, in manufacturing, prostitution and as private domestic workers.

What is Slavery?
Slavery is the labor or services that are performed or provided by another person and are obtained or maintained through an actor by cause and/or use of threats, physical threats and/or restraints, abuse of the law an/or legal process, withholding of documents, use of blackmail, and/or use of financial control over any person.

something to think about

an estimated 28 million people worldwide living today as slaves,

Somehow the suffering of others goes right on beneath our noses and we either don't recognize its signs, or we have been so inured to the marginalization of the poor and their sometimes squalid existence at the outskirts of our communities that we simply ignore the existence of old-fashioned slavery and the utter denial of human rights in our midst."

taken from http://www.the-tidings.com/2007/021607/trafficking.htm

never really thought about human trafic?? wach this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6UVldrM1BE

the offenice of an arugement

one of the advantages of not being able to sleep at night, is you have alot of random thanking time. Last night as i was laying in bed trying to sleep, i started thinking about how easy people take offenise at oppinions or arugmetns.

Back in my debating days at high school, my team often had to present the case from the point of view that none of us belived. if memory serives me correctly, these were usuly the debates we won, as we had to do more reachers to build a case and counter case. the process stimulates thinking, reasoning, rational and so forth, but i don't recall any occation in which it caused us to change our already asstablished oppion. but then again a good debating team cold win the debate that the world was flat. it comes down to which team did a better job as opposed to which argument is correct.

So why is it when people are prosented with a thought, an idia, (even when carried to an extream), that can stimulate and chalange they chose offensie and critisum?

Over the years i have heared numorus things i didn't agree with or belive but some of my oppinos, worldviews and belifes have changed. I try not to block things out or close off to differnt oppions. I try to take them, hold them, examin them, and then decide if i want to ingnore or accept or possibly change my view. Then they become my belife.

Is it because now when people discuss ideas, people see and take it as personal insult or attack. and if so, how much does that have to do with how we approch others when we talk with them, having a senous of supiroity in belife.

And why do we attach? is it because we are not comftable in our own oppions or we don't possilbe want to hear/ see anything that might challenge me to change or state what my oppion is?